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10.1 am
Mr. Norman Baker (Lewes): I thank the Government for establishing the Select Committee on Environmental Audit, a move that showed foresight. The Committee has worked well, as its Chairman, the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Horam), said. It has worked across parties and has produced some good reports; I even saw it referred to in the Treasury's Budget commentary, so we are clearly making some inroads into thinking by the Government.
The Government have said that they will put the environment at the heart of government, and that is becoming something of a cliche, over-used by all of us:
there is so much at the heart of government that there can be little else in the body; nevertheless, it is encouraging to hear that statement repeated time and again. I do not underestimate the difficulties facing the Government in achieving that aim. We have a traditional structure of government that is based on individual Departments pointing in different directions and dealing with their own problems in a rather self-contained manner. The idea of joined-up government--another cliche--cuts across that traditional way of running the country, but it is not necessarily easy to get everyone facing in the same direction. A start has been made, but there is some way to go.
I shall not be over-critical of the Government's environmental record. The Minister for the Environment is present and he is aware that I wrote an article for the Daily Express some time ago, so I should say that I painted a balanced picture, but my words of praise for the Government were cut out before the article appeared in the newspaper--I shall be happy to show the Minister the original if he wants proof of that. On balance, my overall tone was clearly critical, but there were elements of praise, which disappeared.
I share the view of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms Walley) that it is a shame that the only Minister present is the Minister for the Environment: that makes this debate an exercise in preaching to the converted. After all, the right hon. Gentleman won one of the green ribbon awards at a recent ceremony, whereas those who won grey ribbon awards and were not congratulated are not present in the Chamber. I hope that he will take the message from this debate to his colleagues and encourage them to attend the next time that a report of the Environmental Audit Committee is debated on the Floor of the House. It would be good to see them. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will agree with almost everything said in the debate, but his departmental colleagues might not necessarily do so. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North suggested that we should name and shame local authorities that fall down on the job, but perhaps we should also name and shame Departments that fall down on the job--a task that I would happily hand to the Minister for the Environment, as part of his remit.
A Green Ministers team was established by the previous Conservative Government; it has met four times since the general election and is due to meet again this month. Although it is fortunate that it is continuing to meet, I wonder whether its remit is quite right: it appears to me to be, if not moribund, then dealing with minor issues rather than tackling major issues. There is continuing uncertainty about the role of the Green Ministers team compared with that of the ENV Cabinet Committee, to which our report refers. Clarification of those roles is required and both bodies need to take a more proactive role, rather than firefighting, which is what they have been doing hitherto.
It is a shame that the Green Ministers team is not chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister. As the Ministerfor the Environment will be aware, that was a recommendation of the Environmental Audit Committee. The Deputy Prime Minister does a good job on the environment and we would like to have his weight behind environmental measures to bring the rest of the Government on board.
It is also a pity that officials, rather than Ministers, are sent to many of the meetings of the Green Ministers team. There is no excuse for officials being sent; they cannot command the support from others at the meeting that a Minister would command. That downgrades the officials' views, no matter how eloquent they are, and therefore downgrades their Departments' views. With such a huge team--there are more than 100 members of the Government--I see no reason why another Minister should not attend the Committee if the designated Green Minister cannot. I would like to see that practised from now on.
There is a lack of co-ordination across government, but that is the way in which government works, so I shall not be over-critical. The Government are trying to do something new and I congratulate them on that; however, the situation is by no means perfect yet. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North referred to the subject of genetically modified organisms which, as the Minister will know, is a particular interest of mine. There has been a lack of co-ordination across government with regard to that issue, although they have tried to address it by setting up a biotechnology committee.
When the public concern blew up a month or so ago, it was clear that elements of the Government were taken completely by surprise and did not know what to expect. It was also plain that they were speaking from different hymn sheets--or whatever the metaphor might be. The Prime Minister, rather unwisely, said that GMOs were the best thing since sliced bread, or some such phrase--I am not a great fan of sliced bread, but that is the line that he took. The Minister for the Cabinet Office said that GMOs were products of Harold Wilson's "white heat of technology", that we should all be grateful for them and that we have a great biotechnology industry. That went down with the public like the proverbial lead balloon; those Ministers were quickly wheeled off-stage and the Minister for the Environment and the Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, who has responsibility for food safety, were wheeled on later in the week to reassure the public. They did so, but they said different things and adopted different approaches.
That goes to the heart of government. How serious are the Government about the precautionary principle? How serious are they about co-ordinating their views on the environment and the role that such considerations should play in government? How far is the environment to be sacrificed for the achievement of other policy objectives? Sustainable development assessments were referred to earlier, but to what extent does the environment have the first bite in terms of assessment?
Different Ministers are saying different things; the Government have not yet produced a unified voice. It is clear from what he says that the Minister for the Environment applies the precautionary principle, but some of his colleagues do not. There is a lack of co-ordination on that basic point. It is clear that the right hon. Gentleman wants a moratorium on the commercial planting of genetically modified crops, but it is also clear that others in the Government think that that is not necessary and that it would slow down the biotechnology industry.
I use that as an example, but my argument goes beyond that--for example, to our relations with the World Trade Organisation and its agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights, the so-called TRIPS clauses.
I have asked several parliamentary questions on that subject in the past few days, but the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions laid an emphasis in its replies that was wholly at variance with that of the Department of Trade and Industry.
The Treasury is a great player in the Government and has achieved a great deal over many decades. It was responsible for producing the form of national accounts that has become an international standard. I should like the Treasury to take a similar lead in producing a new form of national accounts that takes the environment into account. I have not yet seen evidence that such a co-ordinated approach will be produced to cover the whole of the Treasury's work, but I hope that it will be adopted, as it could mean that the Treasury again gave a lead internationally.
The Treasury seems still to regard the environment as a bolt-on; its thinking is still somewhere in the 1950s. Hooray and three cheers for the energy tax that was announced in last week's Budget. I welcome that measure and am grateful to all those--in the Treasury and elsewhere--who were instrumental in bringing it forward. However, I am not sure--I hope that the Minister can reassure me--that the energy tax is not simply a very big bolt-on to Treasury thinking that is self-contained and works quite well in itself. Is that a sign of a new thinking permeating the Department? Has the Treasury signed up to the idea that taxes should be shifted from good things, such as employment, to bad things, such as pollution? Will the Treasury approach all of its decision making in that way or does it view the energy tax simply as one environmental tax that happens to work in a self-contained box? In other words, will we see further steps in that direction, or is the measure a one-off?
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